In a world where consumer goods and services abound, many people rely on advertisements to inform them of new products on the market. Advertisements today are as diverse, plentiful, and entertaining as the products they attempt to sell. Billboards, television commercials, radio spots, celebrity endorsements, newspaper ads—all are designed to capture people's attention in the hopes that the person's interest will be matched by the products being marketed and that the person will buy the product as a result.
However, the abundance of advertisements has caused some people to grow weary of commercials directed to a general audience. People no longer have the patience to endure advertising that markets products in which they have no interest. Televisions are muted or fast-forwarded through commercials, pages containing magazine and newspaper ads are quickly turned, and radio stations playing ads are switched to the next station. As a result, some advertisements of products and services never reach the people that would be most interested in them.
Tagging is a concept that has been used to facilitate the classification of information. A tag is a keyword or term that is associated with or assigned to a piece of information (like a picture, an article, or a video clip) and that describes the item. For example, tags are used on the Internet to describe webpages so that a person trying to find a webpage on a particular topic may be able to search the Internet for webpages relating to that topic. For instance, a webpage with content about how to purchase tickets to attend a Yankees' baseball game may have tags including “baseball,” “tickets,” and “Yankees.”
Tags are generally created by the user or author of an item of information. For example, the author of a webpage would typically create the tags to describe that webpage. Tags may also be created as a result of a user filling out a questionnaire or creating a profile. A profile may include, for example, words to describe the person's lifestyle, her hobbies, her interests, and other characteristics. For example, as part of subscribing to a service, such as registering to obtain access to a certain website, a person may be required to create a profile. That person's profile may include the fact that he has three dogs, loves mountain biking, and enjoys traveling abroad.
Thus, there is a need for providing people with advertising content in a way that is personalized, tailored to match the person's interest, and is conveniently and unobtrusively provided to the person.